Welcome to Summer!

For most people reading this blog (those in America anyways) summer and summer break is in full swing, in Tokyo things are a little different. The school year here started in April therefore I am still in full teaching mode. Our summer vacation starts around July 17th and ends in the middle of September, although some schools in Tokyo do not resume again until October. This makes teaching a bit strange during September and once I explain where I work, you’ll understand why.

I began teaching the beginning of April, and realized I haven’t had a blog entry since then so I will attempt to catch everyone up on where I’ve been working and what I’ve been up to these past two months. For starters, since I moved to the Bunkyo-ku Ward (文京区) I have been attending a new church called Koishikawa Church (小石川 教会). This congregation is much different from my last one. The church building itself is quite a bit bigger and in my mind resembles more of a Western style church with stain glass windows and a pulpit. The congregation is also composed of a large deaf community and therefore the service is conducted at a slower speed, so the sign language interpreter can keep up. The service is also shown on an overheard projector with everything written out so the deaf members can follow along as well. The congregation is quite accepting and accommodating to those who are different, and this consequently helps me understand and follow along a lot better myself!

I am currently working at two different locations; the first site is the Hongo Student Center (本郷学生センター). I work there Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays teaching several different classes. I have two beginner classes, two intermediate classes, and three children's classes. The beginner and intermediate classes are composed of mainly adult students. The beginner classes tend to be older women's classes and the intermediate classes tend to be graduate students from Tokyo University, which is located across the street from our center. These classes are very enjoyable to teach because having older students means that conversations flow much easier, and there are many things to talk about. The children's classes are team teached by me, Matthew Linden (J3), and Eric Anspach-Hanson (longterm ELCA missionary). Children's classes are new as of this April, but so far have been a huge success. We teach children from ages 3 to 6 years old. It’s amazing to watch their progress, and quite rewarding for myself and the others teachers as well.

The second site I work at is the Katerina Dormitory (カテリーナ). I teach at this location on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday nights due to the girl’s regular school schedule. Katerina is a girl's dormitory located next door to the Koishikawa Church. High school and college aged girl's live here while they are attending school in Tokyo. I teach small group and private lessons there each week. Currently I have 19 students, which is a lot of time considering most girls have private one-on-one lessons for an hour. This assignment is really rewarding because due to the small classroom size we can really talk about anything the girls want, which makes individualized lesson planning a lot of fun. The girls get a lot of focus which has allowed for some interesting conversations to come up about life in Japan, different cultures and we've even talked quite a bit about religion!

So I hope I’ve answered your questions about “What has Dana been up to lately?” She’s been teaching! I hope this gives you a better insight to the locations I’m teaching in, if you have any other questions please feel free to post! I’ll try to write another entry about daily life soon!